Ebola Is as Serious as ISIS, Senator Says

The Ebola epidemic is as serious a threat as Islamic extremists, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander said Tuesday. "We must take the deadly, dangerous threat of Ebola as seriously as we take ISIS," Alexander, a Republican, told a hearing on the epidemic. "This is an instance where we should be running toward the burning flames with our fireproof suits on." The Senate appropriations and health committees were holding a joint hearing on the epidemic, which has now infected at least 5,000 people and killed half of them, according to the World Health Organization.

"We need to declare war on Ebola," Kansas Republican Senator Jerry Moran told the hearing.

Ebola Is as Serious as ISIS, Senator Says


Even Republicans think the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is a threat to US national security. Probably because it is.

"I support these efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic, and know that we will monitor this humanitarian crisis in the weeks ahead," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Ebola crisis could last for years if not controlled quickly

The Ebola outbreak could end up lasting for years and spreading to many more countries if it is not controlled quickly, a U.S. health official told a Senate hearing Tuesday, a day when aid agencies offered a stark assessment of prospects for stopping the epidemic.

...."If we do not act now to stop Ebola, we could be dealing with it for years to come," said Beth Bell, director of the national center for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At a Senate hearing on Ebola, she noted that 100 CDC staff are working in West Africa and hundreds more are assisting from Atlanta. "The best way to protect the U.S. is to stop the outbreak in West Africa."

….While Bell described Ebola as a dangerous forest fire, moving fast, Brantly told senators that Ebola was "a fire straight from the pit of Hell. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the vast moat of the Atlantic Ocean will protect us from this fire."

Getting Ebola treatment centers up and running quickly, Brantly said, "is the only way to keep entire nations from being reduced to ashes."

So what's the plan? ...Operation United Assistance:

….The plan has four general goals, Obama said: to control the Ebola outbreak, prevent "ripple effects" that could lead to economic and humanitarian disasters, coordinate a global response, and build up Africa's public health care system.

….The troops to be dispatched to Africa will not be providing "direct patient care," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, but instead provide logistical and engineering support to health care professionals. Earnest said the involvement of the U.S. military should give people confidence in the plan, both in Africa and worldwide.

...."There is no guarantee of success, but there would be a guarantee of failure if Obama hadn't announced this plan," said Lucey, an adjunct professor of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center.

West African Ebola treatment centers look nothing like the gleaming modern buildings that many Americans picture when they think of hospitals, Bell said. Many hospitals in affected West African countries lack basics such as running water, soap and even beds. Patients often sleep on mattresses on the floor.

….But there may never be enough hospital beds, Isaacs says.

That's why Samaritan's Purse is shifting its focus away from hospitals toward teaching people to safely care for people infected with Ebola at home, Isaacs says.

….The Obama plan includes training up to 500 health care workers a week, and construction of up to 17 health care facilities of 100 beds each. Home health care kits will be distributed, and local populations will be trained on how to handle suddenly infected Ebola patients.

"We need to educate people on how to safely care for their loved ones," Brantly said.

The number of Ebola patients – now about 5,000 – has doubled in only the past month. If cases continue to double every three weeks, as some predict, the outbreak could affect 100,000 people, or even 250,000, by some estimates, Isaacs notes.

"There simply aren't going to be enough beds," Isaacs said.

"We ran Ebola treatment centers for two months and we were totally overwhelmed," Isaacs said. "Isolating people in their homes and training the family members to protect themselves is the way we can influence disease transmission."

Just to be clear:

….The troops to be dispatched to Africa will not be providing "direct patient care," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, but instead provide logistical and engineering support to health care professionals. Earnest said the involvement of the U.S. military should give people confidence in the plan, both in Africa and worldwide.

….The Obama plan includes training up to 500 health care workers a week, and construction of up to 17 health care facilities of 100 beds each. Home health care kits will be distributed, and local populations will be trained on how to handle suddenly infected Ebola patients.

"We need to educate people on how to safely care for their loved ones," Brantly said.

The number of Ebola patients – now about 5,000 – has doubled in only the past month. If cases continue to double every three weeks, as some predict, the outbreak could affect 100,000 people, or even 250,000, by some estimates, Isaacs notes.

"There simply aren't going to be enough beds," Isaacs said.

You know what is the sad part Sofi, that US tax payers has been financing the development of an Ebola vaccine as early as 2003, about a dozen so call vaccines has been in the making.

Now after so much debating, guess who is going to be the first to test the vaccine, as per US green light to go, but only on healthy adults in the US, this month.

GlaxoSmithKline, they will do the trials in Bethesda, Maryland

a reply to: marg6043

Surprising actually because stage three trials usually involve testing medicine in Africa. It's like, "We don't want to risk our own population, so throw it into that cesspool to see if it works".

I thought that's how the outbreak began...?

Seems some confusion on the figures , bbc reports that cases double every _2 weeks .
This appears to be a more nasty outbreak with each fresh look we get at it .
We know the death rate ,55% , the morbidity rates must be quite high too . But , what about transmission details ?
I've been hearing animals can carry it , that dead bodies are more infectious than living ones , and can flies produce contacts ?
With the death rate factor , Its possible the evd can kill doctors faster than it creates patients , hence the above quotes talking about home care being the best way of treatment . We still need to hear more about transmissibility.

a reply to: soficrow

I thought you might like to see this:

A trial of an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus is to begin in Oxford.

The first of 60 healthy volunteers will be injected with the vaccine.
It contains only a small portion of genetic material from the virus, so it cannot cause the disease.

Normally it would take years of human trials before a completely new vaccine was approved for use.
But such is the urgency of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa that this experimental vaccine is being fast tracked at an astonishing rate.

If the trials are successful, it could be used to immunise health workers in affected areas by the end of the year.
By then, around 10,000 doses should be available.

BBC article

The end of the year is still a long time away leaving many unprotected. This is a scary outbreak, and it seems to be spreading quickly.

a reply to: beansidhe

Thanks. There are a number of treatments and vaccines being pushed through the pike now [links below]. ....The main point people aren't getting is that Ebola is mutating rapidly in West Africa right now - and that's why the epidemic needs to stopped there, asap.

The longer H2H transmission occurs, the more mutations will accumulate. This raises the specter of airborne transmission but most important, threatens the viability of new treatments and vaccines - all developed for specific strains. Point being, if new strains emerge, treatments and vaccines in development now will be obsolete before production even starts.




The latest Ebola treatments, from plasma to ZMapp

Ebola? Take a Pill. ...What Doesn't Work and What's in the Pike

a reply to: soficrow

That is a sobering response. I didn't know Ebola could mutate so rapidly - I really haven't paid enough attention to the coverage. I'll read your links, many thanks for providing them.
An airborne mutation is really worrying - it would be unpreventable.
In fact I see you've got a thread in your sig, I'll make some time to read that.